Friday, 14 December 2007

Recommended: ANAK HALAL

Saw it last night. Although not a perfect film (Why on earth would we want to watch a perfect film? Wouldn't it be as intimidating as knowing a perfect person?) I am amazed anew at Osman Ali's empathy (heart), energy and skill with actors. If nothing else, this film is significant for finally making a credible leading man of Farid Kamil (!)

If Osman's earlier, underrated film Puaka Tebing Biru reminded me of old Malay movies, Anak Halal is like gritty Bollywood. As such, some would flinch that it's all 'too much', which is fine. But the excess is wedded to a generosity of spirit, which makes it all right by me.

Osman has been creating a consistent cinematic world since his graduation short in 1999 (also called Anak Halal), a world of sensuality, underdog camaraderie, outrage, provocation, pathos. He always goes that little bit further than anyone else would dare to – just to get that little bit closer.

Salam my friends,I have not watched this movie, and forbid myself from watching this movie after reading a review by Faisal Tehrani in his blog. To me, different people would have different views about everything because Allah created humans to be unique, Subhanallah. Therefore it is not wrong to express each other's view but most importantly is to respect others' opinion and always be open about it, plus maybe to a certain extent accept the view(if it does not contradict with yours). To me, as a Muslim, my view about this film(though I have not watched it, but I have watched a film by the same director) would be the same as Faisal Tehrani, as written in his blog. I am not a very good writer, so I could not write much, but everything that Faisal Tehrani wrote expressed exactly how I feel about this current film industry in my beloved country. I love my country,and I love my religion Islam, but it is very disappointing to see lots of Muslims nowadays not just in Malaysia but around the globe claiming themselves to be Muslim but taking the religion easily as if they do not fear Allah, Astaghfirullah. May Allah bless us all and protect us from the the hellfire. To the owner of the blog, I am sorry for my long writing, didn't mean to at first but everything just came out in a spurt. Hope it's ok with you. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to write here and also I have to named myself as ANON since I do not have any blog. Wassalam XXX Abdullah